Category: Craving

No object of desire is the cause of any agony in itself. It is your craving for that object that makes you suffer.

Take for instance, a hot summer day. And you are thirsty. You see nice juicy watermelons on the street and want to stop your car. But you find the parking slots by the stall crowded and you see a policeman standing under a tree nearby. You believe the cop will object to your parking your car outside of the earmarked space. You are miffed and drive away cursing the crowds and the cop, ruing the missed opportunity to take some of those melons home. Even when you narrate this experience to your wife when you get home, you are complaining and are not merely reporting. There’s a sense of loss and evidence of frustration in your reportage. Now, did the humble melon on the street cause your agony or did your craving for it__and your eventual inability to buy it__cause it?

Think about it. All of us are victims of this cravings-brings-suffering trap. What we crave for is not the cause, it is the act of craving that causes misery. We crave for attention, adulation, understanding, respect, fame, rewards, recognition, wealth, opportunity, love and followership. And when we don’t get it, we are disappointed. Now, if you are disappointed and if your disappointment doesn’t affect your Life, it is fine. But when you are disappointed, you are mourning. Your energies are low. You start operating in a low energy__scarcity__spectrum. This naturally affects the way you live and experience Life. On the other hand, consider the situation when there is no craving, and so there’s no disappointment, so there’s no suffering. In such a scenario, you are operating in a high-energy__abundance__spectrum. Remember: Wherever your attention goes, your energy flows. In Buddhist teachings, they advocate the complete cessation of craving. Which means to eliminate all craving. In Japanese, the word wotsubusu means to annihilate. When you wotsubusucraving, you feel liberated. Such freedom opens up a whole new opportunity spectrum of playing to your strengths – to what you have. Than to worry about, lament over, what you don’t have.

Simplify Life: Give up the craving. And you will immediately stop suffering!

Seeking to be understood by people who refuse to understand you is a sure way to make yourself feel miserable.

When you crave for understanding from people, it is actually your ego which is rearing its ugly head. Craving is desire. When you desire to be understood you are actually saying: “How dare someone draw a different inference from what I intend?” or “How can someone speak to ME like that?” or “I have done so much for this person and yet this person is so ungrateful!”.

You don’t need to kill that craving in you. All you need to know is that each person is entitled to his or her own opinions and behavior. Quite naturally, it is an extremely painful process to allow people to be the way they are. Especially when you are having to live and work with them. Then the only option to consider is if you really want to live and work with that someone. If you have to, you must stop complaining about that person – that’s the only way you can be at peace with yourself in such a context. If you don’t have to live with that someone, simple, disassociate. You may well wonder, how can you disassociate from a parent, sibling, spouse or dear friend? I have faced such a situation a few times in Life. And the best way to disassociate, I have learnt, is to just keep quiet. Try and work out a physical dissociation but in any case, choose to be disengaged and quiet. In the face of all provocation, don’t respond. Your silence may be seen as your weakness – but it is your greatest weapon in reality. And it is not a weapon that can destruct. It actually arrests any further damage. Disassociation does not mean you must sulk. You can be still engaged at a courtesy or social level. A hi and a bye never does anyone any harm. But you don’t need to engage in such a way that you have to crave to be understood. Nor will there be a situation warranting an understanding when there is no engagement! Think about it – it works! At least, it has worked for me.

When you operate with this logic, your ego will not run amok and you will not suffer. When you don’t operate from your egoistic core, you will tame any craving. When the mind ceases to crave, it finds peace. And peace always delivers joy!

Disclaimer

Disclaimer 1: The author, AVIS, does not claim that he is the be-all, know-all and end-all of all that he shares based on experiences and learnings. AVIS has nothing against or for any religion. If the reader has a learning to share, most welcome. If the reader has a bone to pick or presents a view, which may affect the sentiments of other followers/readers, then this Page’s administrators may have to regrettably delete such a comment and even block such a follower. Disclaimer 2: No Thought expressed here is original though the experience of the learning shared may be unique. AVIS has little interest in either infringing upon or claiming copyright of any referenced material published on this Page. The images/videos used on this Page/Post, that are not created by AVIS, are purely for illustrative purposes. They belong to their original owners/creators. The author does not intend profiting from them nor is there any covert claim to copyright any of them.